My kids love to draw, but the last time I took a drawing class was in 8th grade. While I like to be creative in making things, drawing is not an area I was invested time into. So I need to be able to find an art curriculum that requires little instruction or demonstration for me but also teaches them skills and techniques. I was very interested and excited to be able to review Simple Draw with Bob Parson. This program is available also as a part of the 7th grade curriculum available from Timberdoodle.
About Simply Draw
Simply Draw with Bob Parson is a multimedia drawing program. It combines some video lessons along with the book lessons to give visual guidance on the different techniques. This is great for parents such as myself who do not have any art background or even remember the different techniques taught. The video lessons are noted in the table of contents with an asterisk next to the lesson title. In the book is a QR code and password to gain access to the videos on a mobile device or a URL link and password to access from a computer.
The video lessons vary in length, some around 2 minutes to under 20 minutes.
Here are the concepts taught in this course:
- Getting Started
- Short Parallel Lines
- Seeing Angles
- Basic Shapes
- Basic Drawing
- Hands
- Lettering
- Stick Figures & Action
- Textures & Patterns
There are three additional lessons that are available by video only.
The book is a spiral bound book and the paper is good quality. The paper is similar to cardstock in my opinion, this is good to make sure certain inks don’t bleed through the pages. The spiral binding makes it easier for drawing on the designated pages.
Each lesson is broken down into the teaching portion and the student portion. On the teaching lesson page are basic instructions. As a nice reminder, if the lesson contains a video the QR code and password are on the page. This is good if your child does the work independently, they can quickly tell if there is a video for the lesson.
As a parent with little art knowledge, I found this course very interesting and informative. While my daughter in 9th grade has an art style, I do think there are some skills and concepts that she could learn more about from this course and use in her art. My son is in 4th grade, while he can learn some of the skills, I do think they are bit more detailed for his current development. However, this did show him some interesting ways to shadow things and add texture. But as I mentioned above this course is part of the 7th grade curriculum, so it would be the most beneficial to student in that grade level or higher.
Overall, if you need help teaching your child some art techniques this course is great since it includes video lessons as well as the book work.
Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this product in exchange for my honest opinion.
The Life We Build 